Abstract

The dissertation investigates some linguistic data associated with the first person. It is argued that the data may be successfully treated within a semantic framework which focuses on the relation between linguistic expressions and intermediate cognitive constructions. The dissertation also defends the sub-claim that approaches which proceed within a model-theoretic framework are incapable of accounting for the data. This incapacity is traced to the model-theoretic assumption that the relation between linguistic expressions and extralinguistic reality constitutes the appropriate domain of study. Against the model-theoretic assumption that cognitive considerations may be excluded from investigation of the relation studied by semantics, I claim that appeal to mental representations is required if an account of the data is to be provided. ;Chapter I canvasses the philosophical literature in order to generate a set of first-person linguistic data. It is then shown in Chapter II that total and partial model-theoretic approaches fail to explain the data. Moreover, I argue that the assumptions which underlie both approaches in principle preclude successful treatment of the relevant phenomena. An alternative framework developed in Chapter III begins from the assumption that a central role must be accorded the mind by any semantic theory purporting to treat the data. A specific variant of the approach is outlined informally; ST employs families of partial structures to model the states of affairs described by multi-sentence texts. The chapter concludes with a preliminary formalization of ST, along with a proposal for a semantic rule specifying how the pronoun I sets up elements within the ST-structures. It is shown in chapter IV that, once appropriately supplemented by auxiliary rules, ST successfully treats the data. A summary of the treatment accorded first-person phenomena by ST is provided in Chapter V, along with some discussion of the referential status of the pronoun I